TheBanyanTree: The dark art of raising a teenager

[Theta]

When our oldest hit the teen years I developed the theory of Teenage alien possession.  That's not really my darling child acting/saying/doing those horrible things. It's the alien life form that has taken over the darling child's brain. I decided my main job was to keep the body safe until the brain can reassert it's dominance, and not to takeanything said with any kind of seriousness.  I would say, "I know you don't really mean that -it's the alien talking."  Do you have any idea how crazy that makes the kid?

Hang in there. They become human again eventually. 

Theta

Sent from my iPad

On Nov 24, 2011, at 11:57 PM, "Anita Coia" <anita at redpepper.net.au> wrote:

> As some of you know, I have a late-teenage stepson. He is with us 50% of the
> time, which occurs in various incarnations according to what works best with
> his school and extra-curricular activity schedule. 
> 
> 
> 
> I don't recall thinking much about parenting a teenager as he headed towards
> and then beyond puberty.  I don't feel old or terribly mature, so I don't
> think it occurred to me that a teenager would seem like such an alien
> species.  Perhaps I somehow thought that having BEEN a teenager qualified me
> for raising one.
> 
> 
> 
> Oh, what a belly laugh that gives me now!  Ho ho ho!   Boy, have I forgotten
> a lot about being a teenager.
> 
> 
> 
> Don't get me wrong. He is actually a nice kid. He is not into drugs that we
> know of. He has tried to sneak in some drinking at parties though he's not
> legal age. He loves his little half-sister, my daughter, who is the only one
> who can score a kiss from him these days (parents? Blecch, no!). Whenever I
> ask him to do a chore he does it without complaint (though he has trouble
> with assigned chores - never remembers. It's just easier to ask him every
> time). He makes me laugh a lot - he is articulate and intelligent and funny.
> 
> 
> 
> I just find myself regularly frustrated at his lack of motivation, his - I
> was going to say laziness, but I think a better description is his constant
> calculation of the minimum possible effort required to get through
> something.  His lack of consideration for the impacts of his actions on
> other people. His lack of consideration full stop sometimes - I don't expect
> Mother's Day or birthday presents from him, but this year he decided to save
> his money and his father received precisely NOTHING at his birthday or
> Father's Day.  (and his father was actually still paying him an allowance,
> therefore would have been funding the presents himself).
> 
> 
> 
> The thing that really bothers me, though, is the lying. Particularly as he
> never gets away with lies about important things, but he still does it.
> It's like a reflex. He keeps lying until you prove you know otherwise.  He
> lies about trivial things too, even though there seems no point. 
> 
> 
> 
> Yes, I KNOW there are lots of teenage boys like this. I use Google, I've
> seen the stories. But I don't care about all those other teenagers, I just
> care about this one. I worry about how he will get through life with a
> disinclination to be truthful, which is only tolerated for so long by people
> other than family.  I have known a couple of adult males like this, and
> their lives are characterised by constant movement in their relationships.
> 
> 
> 
> How will he go with a disinclination to put in effort on something he's not
> interested in or involves hard physical work (he told his father "I'm not a
> full work day kind of guy", which made us laugh, but is actually probably
> true at the moment)? He has plans to make a career out of being a drummer,
> so he will most likely need to also work doing something else, something he
> doesn't like all that much, to make ends meet.
> 
> 
> 
> You know what I want here, don't you, all you parents of grown-up teenagers?
> Yes, I want reassurance that he will grow out of it, mature, turn into the
> man I know he can be, full of potential with a great life ahead of him.  Is
> the dark art of raising a teenager that of guiding him to this future, or is
> it actually letting go and letting him get there by his own path, however
> rocky and stumble-prone it may be? Or should I just be stepping back and
> letting him reach his own future, not the one I (or his father) envision for
> him?
> 
> 
> 
> Anita
>